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We were the international Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault (JCASA); and were dedicated to ending sexual violence in Jewish communities globally. We did our best to operate as the make a wish foundation for Jewish survivors of sex crimes. In the past we offered a clearinghouse of information, resources, support and advocacy.

Sunday, April 15, 2001

Material for a Training Session on Ritual Abuse for Crisis Counselors and Hot-Line Workers

By J and D

Ritual Abuse, Ritual Crime and Healing - April 15, 2001

Many thanks to J. and D., who compiled this information, and to the organization that anonymously donated it to the Ritual Abuse Home Page. (The generosity of the organization helped keep this typist going through the first five years of healing.)

Please Feel Free To Copy and Distribute This Material

Definition

The term "ritual abuse" is used to mean different things: it can mean "ritualistic" abuse: repetitive, planned out, compulsive abuse by an isolated perpetrator. More frequently, it describes abuse by an organized group of people, most often by a satanic cult.This presentation is about abuse in satanic cults.

The abuse is used to gain ultimate control over another human being, control by torture of the mind, body, and spirit. The abuse happens as part of a ritual. It can happen at any time but is especially likely to happen on a child's birthday and on satanic holidays, which include May 1, Halloween, Easter, the solstices, and Christmas. The cult tries to destroy any kind of life-affirming connections based on caring, replacing them with connections based on torture and death.

Because the abuse begins when the individual is a young child, the effects are deeply in-grained. The child is not developmentally sophisticated enough to understand what is happening to her/him. Both girls and boys are victimized, and both men and women are perpetrators. In this presentation we will be talking about women, though most of these issues can be generalized to men.

Programming (a form of mind control) is the key to ritual abuse: it is an intrinsic element in forcing people to participate and later to be afraid to leave the cult or come forward. The abuse is systematic and designed to bind the child to the cult. Members of satanic cults try to create a new reality for the child based on fear. They may set out to create multiple personalities which they can control. This is achieved by:

Torture of the Body

Survivors have been gang raped, electroshocked, buried alive, hung from ceilings by their hands/feet, and drugged to increase their sense of helplessness.

Torture of the Spirit

Survivors are forced to choose in no-win moral dilemmas: "You can watch this cat be slowly tortured to death, or you can kill it." (Purpose: to get her to believe she is part of the cult, an evil person). It's not unusual for a girl to be forcibly impregnated, labor induced, and the baby killed. Children have been forced to sexually abuse another child for pornographic pictures. The cult will later use the pornography for blackmail.

Torture of the Mind

Some cults set out to program (brainwash): for example: "When you hear the phone ring, you will jump out the window;" "when you receive a rose you will return to the cult;" "if you tell, I'll kill you, your friend, your dog." Cult members will say, "I love you" or "I'm helping you" while torturing (later, outside the cult, these words will evoke terror).

A child could be anesthetized, wake up with blood on her stomach and be told a thought-detector was inserted in her or a bomb that will explode if she tells anyone. A girl is raped, told it was by satan and she will have satan's child; she becomes terrified because in the world the cult has created for her, it seem that this could be true.

Cult members further distort her sense of reality by dressing up as priests, policemen, Big Bird, Mickey Mouse - so she learns that anyone could be a cult member and therefore no one is safe to talk to.

Who is Involved?

Anyone can be involved. Often at least one parent is involved, and it can be a whole extended family. It can be pretty unorganized (a bunch of local guys), or very organized with networks that span the country. Some cults even have international connections.

Authority figures are often perpetrators. The child is in the untenable position of being ex-pected to respect and obey adults who torture her. Doctors are sometimes associated with cults, to give medication, to keep someone alive while bringing her to the brink of death, to perform "magick" (e.g. fake) surgery. People who work for the FBI, lawyers, police, people high up in government, have been said to be satanic cult members.

The abuse occurs in many different settings, including homes, day care centers, churches and outdoors. In day care centers, the child is told that her parents know this is happening and want it to happen but "don't you ever tell them about it." In churches, children are forced to participate in satanic rituals by cult members who also worship God.

How and Why it Continues

Children don't tell because of fear of being killed and guilt about the acts they have been forced to commit. The child does not understand that she really had no choice, and feels a terrible respon-sibility for the decisions she was forced to make.

Parents who are not involved in cults don't imagine that such a thing could be happening because ritual abuse is so far from their experi-ence and their view of the world. Some warning signs in children are: problems going to the bathroom, problems eating certain foods, fear of certain colors, nightmares, and not wanting to be separated from parents. But the fact is that any of these warning signs can look like "normal" problems of development.

Many mental health professionals question if it really happens, or believe some survivors but think most are making it up. Ritual abuse is a terrifying subject and it is often easier for people to deny that it occurs than to deal with it.

Many survivors do not remember until years after the abuse occurred, because one of the de-fenses for dealing with such overwhelming trauma is to forget that it ever happened. When they do remember, they think they must be crazy - because how could such an insane thing really happen?

Symptoms of previous ritual abuse

The credibility of every ritual abuse survivor is on trial. That is why it is so important for us as listeners to be supportive and open-minded. A survivor may seem crazy to someone who has never been involved with a satanic cult because of the defense mechanisms she has developed to survive:

She may have flashbacks (including body memories), and can go into physical shock.

She may experience incredible culture shock outside the cult and have great difficulty trust-ing/relating to people.

She may be confused about what happened, and sound incoherent when questioned.

She may have multiple personalities.

She may cut or injure herself to try to drive away the memories or punish herself for what she's been through..

If you think about it, these reactions make a lot of sense. The mind deals with the trauma by creating defenses in order to cope. The important thing to remember is that, although some ritual abuse survivors have severe reactions, they will not always manifest these symptoms. We should not distance ourselves from survivors; most survivors cannot be differentiated from anyone else. You probably already know someone who has survived ritual abuse!

Societal structures also have a vested interest in disbelieving survivors. The idea of ritual abuse is so terrifying that society reacts by deny-ing that it could happen. The same thing happened with the idea of battering and incest; because people didn't believe it happened, for them, it didn't exist. Acknowledging that ritual abuse is a problem is the first step towards dealing with it.

Differences Between Incest and Ritual Abuse Survivors

It Takes an Extremely Long Time...

for someone to accept that she is a ritual abuse survivor. A ritual abuse survivor is often aware that she is a survivor of incest or that she has multiple personalities long before she realizes that she is a survivor of ritual abuse.

Trusting People...

will be a big issue. She may feel that the cult is omnipotent. Who can she trust? Her therapist, a friend, us? She will be very scared that anyone she speaks to may be a part of the cult, or that the cult will find out that she is revealing what happened to her. She may not want to tell her name, and may ask if you are in a cult. It's a good idea to acknowledge her fear: "I can understand that you are very scared. It makes sense; it will go away in time."

Do not try to convince her you are not in a cult. (There are therapists who are in cults, and many survivors have experienced "fake therapy," so it is sensible for a survivor to be cautious.)

If we are not ourselves survivors of ritual abuse, then we must remember that her language and our language, though they use the same words, do not always mean the same things. In many cases words will mean their opposite in the cult; Love = Hate, Comfort = Pain. It is important to understand this if we are to form a con-nection with the survivor. To a survivor, "I want to help you" may mean "I am going to hurt you."

There is More Isolation and Less Support...

for the survivor of ritual abuse. Because this is-sue has only recently begun to be talked about as a phenomenon that impacts significant numbers of people, there are very few support systems in place. And because the survivors feel that they are in danger, it is very difficult for them to reach out to anyone for fear of retribution from the cult.

Contending with Programming

Programming is when people are conditioned to respond in a certain way to a specific stimulus (a trigger). For example: someone hanging up the phone when you answer it, someone saying "I love you," or wearing the color black will provoke a set response such as "I've got to call the cult," "I'm going to kill myself," etc. Some people will seemingly react calmly, thinking, "Well, I just have to do it," while others will feel very anxious and may go into shock.

Resisting the message feels like "fighting for my life" while simultaneously feeling tremendously isolated, alienated and powerless. The impulses come very suddenly, with a sense of urgency - "I have to do this right now." They also go away abruptly. (This is very different from women who are suicidal, whose feelings develop over time).

There are "call-back" years (at 27, 30, 33, etc.) when the survivor feels she must go back or kill herself. Cults will develop multiple person-alities to manipulate, to call back to the cult. Resisting the programming brings up extreme panic, terror, and fear of dying. But we cannot stress enough that people are strong enough to resist programming and can heal. If survivors call here for help, they are resisting their programming.

Survivor Guilt

Survivors are plagued by it. She may say "Why do I have the right to survive? I've seen others die, may have chosen to kill someone or chosen to kill rather than be killed." This guilt is made worse by the cultural myth that you are a weak person if you succumb to torture. The truth is that any child will choose life over death, and that most adults would succumb to the intensity of torture experienced in these cults. Feeling guilt is also a defense against grief; focusing on how bad you were instead of how helpless you were.

A Survivor May Also Feel She was a perpetrator

This is not true. She did not choose to initiate any of the acts. She was not in a situation in which she could have refused to participate. This is important for us to keep in mind if she reveals anything awful that she did. She was fighting for her life.

Satanic holidays

It's good to know when a holiday is coming up, because you will be prepared for more calls. Just asking a caller if they are aware of the holiday can be very helpful; even survivors with many years of healing often "dissociate" (e.g. forget) holidays.

The ceremonies usually take place the eve of the holiday, and sometimes last for three days or a week. When holidays cluster together, as they do in the spring and late December, survivor reactions are especially strong.

Different cults observe different holidays, or stress one more than another, depending on their traditions. Here is a list of the most common ones.

Ancient pagan holidays, based on the sun. (These are also celebrated by modern pagans in loving and non-abusive ways.) There is one holiday every 6 1/2 weeks.

February 2. Candlemas. (lives on as Ground-hog day!)

March 21 or 22. Spring Equinox

May 1. Beltane. (lives on as May Day)

June 21 or 22. Summer Solstice

August 2. Lammas

September 21 or 22. Fall Equinox

October 31. Samhain (lives on as Halloween)

December 21 or 22. Winter Solstice

The full moon is often observed, and sometimes the new moon as well.

All major Christian holidays:

Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Mardi Gras, Palm Sunday, Easter. Sometimes a particular saint's day (St. Valentine's day is common), or the Ascension of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

All major secular holidays,

including (in the United States): Valentines Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Mothers' Day, Fathers' Day, and Thanksgiving. Any three-day weekend can be observed.

Sometimes arrangements are made to have these events occur on a holiday.

Some cults also observe the Jewish holidays, an ancient Roman Halloween-type holiday on August 24, Hispanic holidays like the Day of the Dead, and a tradition of "Marriage to the Beast" in early September.

Handling Crisis Calls

The Ritual Abuse Survivor Knows What's Best for Herself at Any Given Time!

Try to establish safety and support...

but don't try to get her to dwell on remembering, especially if she is feeling like killing herself - there may be more triggers in the memory. Do not encourage her to talk about specifics, such as people and places, on the phone. Talking in depth about her experiences may be too much for her to handle. Our role should be to offer support in a non-threatening way. We should be aware that a satanic holiday, her birthday, or a call-back year may be behind a ritual abuse survivor's freaking out, even if she does not realize this.

Build a connection…

She will feel very isolated, because to build connections with people may bring back memories of what relationships mean in the cult. Isolating herself may be her way of keeping safe. If she is able to reach out to us, she is taking a step toward breaking away from that isolation.

Counteract programming…

She may be aware of the concept and remember her pro-gramming, or she may not. Be careful and deli-cate about what you say, and leave interpretations to her. "Sometimes people have reactions on days they were abused; does that seem true for you?" If she is aware of program-ming, you can remind her that the feelings will pass.

Encourage her to outsmart...

her programming: If she knows something will trigger her, she can plan what she will do instead. For instance, she can plan to be with someone during a satanic holiday. Or she can prepare herself for being triggered and take steps to prevent doing harm to herself.

Reprogramming/deprogramming…

The goal is to not be programmed. There is no quick fix. She will not be able to go to a therapist and just get "reprogrammed." Even if this were possible, what would be the point? She still would not be her own person. The healing process is very gradual, and takes place tiny triumph by tiny triumph. Some examples of actions that counter programming:

Saying, "I'm a good person. I did not deserve ritual abuse."

Making a friend

Getting some support

Telling someone, "I am a ritual abuse survi-vor"

Realizing ,"I am still alive" (The more times I don't kill myself, the weaker the programming gets.)

Accept mistrust…

She may say, "How do I know you are not in the cult?" thinking that you are a cult member. You can't prove to her that you aren't, and her fear is reasonable, given her experience. It's better to say something like, "I can't convince you, trust me as much as you feel comfortable. Or "it's good that you are cautious about who you trust at first." Trying to convince her that you are OK will not be helpful.

Counteract survivor guilt…

Affirm her goodness. Assert that she didn't really have a choice. She was a tool used by the cult, not the initiator of any harm she was involved in. Don't get into "yes, but..." with her. If she argues, say, "I believe you are a good person, I believe you were used, but you need to decide for yourself."

Don't expect her to feel all better after the call… Hopefully, she will have made a connection and not feel quite so isolated. But she may feel even worse. It is absolutely exhausting to work through these feelings and thoughts.

Validate feelings, not programming… "Yes, that is what they told you, but I don't believe they put a bomb in your stomach." "Naturally you'd be terrified if they lied to you like that."

Share feelings…

"I really feel sad that these things have happened to you. They never should have happened." "I'm angry that children get treated like that. It's more than not fair, it's outrageous."

If you say something that seems to trigger her...

follow with something like, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." or "Maybe I used a word that upsets you." Don't feel too bad, because there is no way you can know exactly what her triggers are. If you stumble onto one, try to figure out what the trigger was and help her deal with her feelings.

Set limits…

It is not helpful to encourage her to go on and on. If she is spilling, telling her whole history, bring it to some focus. Tell her that other survivors find that, in the long run, it is helpful to talk for short, frequent periods, or to focus on one subject. If you end the call, leave her with a message of trust, such as "I know you have the power to take charge of your life and live with dignity."

It's so important that we make connection, person to person, to undo what ritual abuse is all about.

Male callers

Until now, we have used 'she' instead of 'he/she.' Yet 50% of the children abused in cults are male. Except for impregnation, abortion, and birth, they are abused in all the same ways that girls are.

Male survivors, because of our culture, have even more problems remembering their abuse and asking for help. Men are supposed to be strong and self-sufficient, aggressive enough to fight off any attack. Our mythology says that men and boys are never raped, especially not by women. And yet there are fewer resources for men - fewer shelters, fewer books on healing from abuse, even fewer knowledgeable therapists.

Male callers tend to be more isolated, more afraid of being blamed or scapegoated (even to being presumed to be perpetrators), and have more authority problems than women callers. And we have less experience dealing with male survivors, and therefore haven't had the chance to work through our own feelings about wounded men.

It's often helpful to acknowledge these facts and to validate men's unique burdens as survivors.

Personal Safety and Competence

You will undoubtedly pick up some of your caller's feelings, just as you do in other situa-tions. Fear is especially contagious.

To our knowledge, no telephone crisis counselor has been physically hurt by a cult. The cult is more apt to harass the former member or her immediate family. If you can handle somebody with a partner on crack, PCP, or alcohol, you have more than enough skills to protect yourself from cult harassment.

Your fear is normal, though. It comes from your ability to empathize - the very trait that makes you effective in your work! Your fear is also stronger if you are just beginning to talk to ritual abuse survivors and the whole concept is still foreign, frightening, and exotic. You don't know what to believe, or whether you can trust your own instincts.

In the beginning, you may also feel totally incompetent. It helps to remind yourself that ritual abuse survivors are just people, badly hurt-ing people, but just people like yourself. All your skills, everything you already know, will be helpful. You do not realize it, but just listening is a precious gift to a ritual abuse survivor.

As always, support, further training, and making sure you take good care of yourself and have a rich life will help you overcome fear and insecurity.

Resources

If you are lucky, resources will be there for you in your community. More likely, you will have to create them yourself. Here are some suggestions:

Survey local therapists to locate people who have worked with ritual abuse survivors, or who are willing to learn about ritual abuse.

If you have a drop-in center, make a note-book for ritual abuse survivors. Collect articles on ritual abuse as you come across them. Leave blank pages for people's feedback on books and resources.

If you have access to the Internet, copy anything you want from the Ritual Abuse, Ritual Crime, and Healing Home Page. (http://www.ra-info.org).

Thursday, April 12, 2001

Eric Hindin, of Newton, MA, plead guilty to 35 counts of child rape, along with numerous charges of indecent assault.He was sentenced to 20-22 years in prison for raping two boys he was paired with in the Jewish Big Brother mentoring program.

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Disclaimer: Inclusion in this website does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement. Individuals must decide for themselves if the resources meet their own personal needs.

NEWTON, –– When he was found asleep in his car in a hotel parking lot early, prosecutors said, Eric Hindin had a note to his parents in his possession. In the note, they said, the 37-year-old Jewish Big Brothers volunteer admitted his ''pedophilia ... and strong attraction to young boys.'' ''In his note, he said by the time you read this, I will be a fugitive or will have committed suicide,'' assistant Middlesex district attorney Shawn Gordon said at Hindin's arraignment Wednesday. But instead of life on the run, or death at his own hand, Hindin, of Newton, was being held without bail in a Cambridge jail, charged with rape and indecent assault against children in Newton and Brookline. In Newton District Court in Middlesex County, Hindin pleaded innocent Wednesday to two charges of indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14.

A judge ordered Hindin held without bail, pending a dangerousness hearing scheduled for April 17. David Traub, a spokesman for Norfolk District Attorney William Keating, said Hindin faces two charges of rape of a child, two charges of indecent assault and battery and two charges of statutory rape in that jurisdiction. ''These charges involve multiple victims,'' Traub said, adding those alleged incidents took place in Brookline. Hindin will be arraigned on those charges in Brookline District Court, but as of Wednesday night a date had not been set, Traub said. Brookline police first learned of the allegations Monday, and obtained the videotapes at his home Tuesday, Gordon said. ''These tapes showed the defendant engaged in various sexual activities with identified individuals. At least two of the individuals were young boys,'' Gordon said. In a prepared statement, the Jewish Big Brother Association of Newton said, ''We're horrified and saddened by these accusations, and by the possibility that harm could have come to any child we've served.'' The organization makes extensive background checks of potential volunteers, and did so with Hindin, but came across nothing that would bar him from volunteering. He had been a volunteer since 1987. Officials in both counties were still investigating.

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Jewish Big Brother Arrested For Sexual Assault and Battery

By Susan Reingold

The Jewish Advocate - April 26, 2001

BOSTON -- A 37-year-old Newton man was arrested last week and charged with seven criminal counts of sexual assault with multiple victims, including an eight-year-old he was matched with through the Jewish Big Brother & Big Sister Association of Greater Boston.

The charges include two counts of indecent assault and battery and two counts of statutory rape.

The alleged perpetrator, Eric Hindin, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment and is being held without bail pending a hearing on May 1.

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Man Faces Charges of Assaulting Minors

News Bank - May 23, 2001

A 37-year-old Newton man was indicted by a Middlesex grand jury yesterday on charges of sexual assaulting two male minors, one of whom he was matched with by a Jewish Big Brother organization. Eric Hindin was charged with several counts of sexual misconduct, including forcible rape of a child. He previously was charged in District Court, and pleaded not guilty to the offenses in April, when he was ordered held without bail. Hinden will appear for arraignment on the felony charges May 30

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Man Arraigned on Sex Charges

News Bank - July 11, 2001

A 37-year-old Newton man was arraigned yesterday in Norfolk Superior Court on 67 counts of sex crimes involving two minor males, one of whom he was matched through Jewish Big Brothers. Eric Hindin pleaded not guilty to the charges, which stemmed from actions that allegedly took place in two counties, according to Norfolk District Attorney spokesman David Traub.

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More Charges Filed in Sexual Abuse Case

Newbank - September 18, 2001

A Middlesex County grand jury yesterday handed down new charges against a Newton man accused of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old boy and a 13-year-old boy at his home. Eric Hindin, a former volunteer with a Jewish Big Brother organization, was charged in May with posing a child in a state of nudity, indecent assault and battery, and posession of child pornography. He also is alleged to have videotaped each boy in a state of sexual conduct and to have exposed himself to both.

BOSTON (AP) A former Jewish Big Brothers volunteer was sentenced Wednesday to 20 to 22 years in prison for raping two boys he was paired with in the mentoring program.

Eric Hindin, 39, of Newton, pleaded guilty last month to 35 counts of child rape, along with numerous charges of indecent assault.

He was arrested in April 2001 and charged with raping the two boys, 9 and 13, who were paired with him as their big brother. He also admitted videotaping the boys in a state of sexual conduct, and exposed himself to both boys.

Hindin also pleaded guilty to charges tied to the indecent assault and battery of a 21-year-old man.

Prosecutors had asked Superior Court Judge Paul Chernoff for a sentence of 40 to 60 years, followed by a life sentence. Instead, the judge imposed lifetime parole supervision after his release.

``Although we had asked for a longer term, we are pleased that no child will be within Mr. Hindin's reach for decades,'' Norfolk District Attorney William Keating said.

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Rabbi Jerrold Levy was convicted of two counts of soliciting sex through the Internet and two counts of child pornography. He was sentenced to six years and sex in prison. He was caught in the "Candyman" year-long sting operation by the US government._________________________________________________________________________________

Disclaimer: Inclusion in this website does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement. Individuals must decide for themselves if the resources meet their own personal needs.

Upon hearing of the case of Rabbi Israel Kestenbaum one of The Awareness Center's volunteer's did an internet search and found the following photograph. Upon looking at it she noticed that convicted sex offender Rabbi Gerrold Levy also appeared in the photograph. It was at that point the photograph was shown this photograph and informed us that he believed a third alleged sex offender was in the photo, at the time The Awareness Center was unable to verify the allegations, so the 3rd rabbi remained unnamed.

Several months later the third rabbi, David Kaye was arrested and charged with an attempt to soliciting a minor on the television show, DATELINE NBC.

There are 14 individuals in the photograph below. Three have been caught soliciting sex from individuals who they believed were minors. At the time the photograph was found, The Awareness Center wondered if anyone else in this photograph might have also been a sexual predator.

BOCA RATON — A rabbi accused of soliciting sex to a teen over the Internet resigned from his job at a local synagogue.

Jerrold M. Levy sent a handwritten letter to Temple Beth El's executive board Monday, thanking friends for their support and vowing to fight the allegations in court.

"I am gratified that so many of you have unwavering faith in me, and will not allow the media firestorm to shake that faith," Levy wrote.

Stuart Grossman, the temple's attorney, said most board members were told of Levy's resignation and already voted to accept it. Beth El trustee Joseph Kline said the rabbi, who was placed on leave after his arrest Thursday, was not forced out.

Grossman said the synagogue will start looking around the country for a new associate rabbi immediately.

Levy, 58, was arrested when he arrived to meet a sheriff's deputy posing as the boy, investigators said. The boy's father, angry that a man using the screen name "CoachBoca" was sending sexually explicit e-mails to his son, created an alternative screen name on America Online and began to communicate with the older man by posing as a 16-year-old surfer.

The father told the man to meet him at a restaurant, but instead staked out the eatery and gave police the license plate number of a man who exited the store without food. Palm Beach County Sheriff's officials then took over the new screen name and got the man to meet them at a college library.

Detectives said Levy drove up in a car with the same license plate noted by the father at the restaurant. Police later learned the screen name "CoachBoca" was registered to Ruth Levy, the rabbi's wife.

Levy was charged with soliciting sex from a minor online, a felony that could get him five years in prison. He was released Saturday from the Palm Beach County Jail on $10,000 bond.

Missouri police said Levy, a former religious studies teacher at St. Louis University, pleaded guilty in 1984 to a third-degree sexual abuse charge for making an advance on an undercover officer.

WEST PALM BEACH — In the privacy of home, behind locked doors, the intimate glow of a computer screen becomes a grow light for fantasies repressed in a disapproving, daylight world.

Click, and the Internet opens an infinite number of other locked doors, behind which are people who can fuel those fantasies and validate any behavior, no matter how deviant it's deemed by the rest of society.

"To individuals who have compulsive sexual problems, this is a bonanza," says crime consultant Ken Lanning, who studied sex offenders for more than 20 years with the Behavioral Science Unit at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va.

The arrest of Boca Raton Rabbi Jerrold Levy on April 5, on a charge of soliciting a teenage boy for sex online, shoved the cybersex phenomenon out of the shadows and into the shocked and disbelieving faces of his family, friends and congregants.

Members of Temple Beth El, to whom he had ministered for nine years, could not associate the lewd language and attempted seduction described by detectives with the scholarly, compassionate, spiritual leader they knew.

"This is so out of character for what we know of this man, it's as alien as can be," said Molly Shuchat of Deerfield Beach. "He's everything I wanted in a rabbi. He's knowledgeable, he's a good teacher. He's such a bright man. I simply can't understand."

More shocks have come since Levy's arrest. More indications that the brilliant mind and dynamic personality seen by the public sheltered an inner life strangely plagued by turmoil.

Despite earning up to $110,500 a year from his Temple Beth El salary and honoraria, the rabbi and his wife, Ruth, a real estate agent, lost their five-bedroom house in a mortgage foreclosure and moved to a home owned by their son.

The IRS filed liens against them for unpaid income taxes totaling nearly $110,000 from 1990 through 1996. In bankruptcy court in 1997, the debts written off included $34,500 in credit card bills. The bankruptcy trustee said he simply closed the case because they had no assets.

And there had been another arrest, 17 years ago. A charge of fondling an undercover police officer in a men's room in St. Louis, where Levy was the rabbi at a suburban synagogue. After that, the family left St. Louis and moved to Florida.

Levy, 58, had been a rabbi since 1969 and associate rabbi at Temple Beth El since 1992. He resigned four days after his arrest, and those closest to him still anguish over the broken bonds of friendship and trust.

"It's almost like a mourning period," said dentist Alan Slootsky of Boca Raton. The rabbi had comforted his family during a death, performed a bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah, and Slootsky fully expected him to officiate at the marriages of all three of his children.

"You go to temple and you look for him, and he's not there," Slootsky said. "It's like a loss."

Shohat says the rabbi intends to plead not guilty at his arraignment on Friday.

"It's the appropriate plea at the present time," he said. "It's our intention, at this point, to defend this case."

The case against Levy was built by Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies working with a federally supported task force that tracks Internet crimes against children in South Florida. They allege he used the screen name CoachBoca to set up a sexual encounter with someone he thought was a 14-year-old boy, after sending nude photos and graphic sexual e-mails. The recipient actually was Detective Patrick Paige, posing as a teen online after the real target's parents alerted authorities. Levy was arrested when he showed up at the meeting site.

Experts aren't shocked or surprised anymore when the people behind the screen names trading child pornography, asking kids to describe their genitals and trying to entice them to rendezvous turn out to be pillars of the community. They've seen it happen too often.

"People thought we were going to catch all these career offenders," Lanning said, "but when the guy you catch is a military officer with a chest full of medals, or a priest, a rabbi or a schoolteacher, all of a sudden people are saying, 'What's that all about?'"

It's about paraphilia, according to Lanning. The term encompasses many types of recurrent, intense, sexually arousing fantasies or behaviors generally considered abnormal, including well-known ones such as sadism and masochism. The most common is pedophilia, a sexual attraction to children.

Paraphilias are sexual preference problems that may not be evident in any other aspect of a person's life.

"We'd all like to believe the perpetrators are wearing trench coats and hiding under bridges," said Nancy McBride, director of the Florida branch, in Lake Park, of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "But they look like the rest of us, they talk like the rest of us and they function in society, until they get caught."

The center provides educational materials about online safety for children on its Web site, www.missingkids.com.

The evolution of computers and the Internet has brought out a phenomenon Lanning calls "latent offenders"—people who may have felt a desire for sex with children but repressed it because of societal pressures and the difficulty of acting on it. Three things offered by the Internet have changed that:

Fuel for arousal.

Validation of behavior.

Access to victims.

Child pornography, a visual stimulant for many pedophiles, was limited 20 years ago.

"During the 1980s, the easiest way to get kiddie porn was to buy a video camera and make your own," Lanning said. "The computer has surpassed the video camera as the (pornographer's) greatest tool."

No longer does a seeker of such pornography have to go to a seedy part of town or a foreign country or risk ordering it by mail. Now anyone with an Internet connection can sit in his own home and download a vast array of porn, store it, print it and swap it with other collectors.

Possessing, selling or transmitting child pornography is a third-degree felony in Florida, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Pornography doesn't create pedophilia, Lanning said, but it strengthens and fuels the arousal patterns, helping to break down inhibitions. At the same time, a person who fears that most people would consider the urges driving him deviant and disgusting finds comfort in an online fraternity.

"There is a great deal of material out there, far more than people realize, which presents a different view of having sex with children," Lanning said. "It doesn't present it as evil, disgusting and perverted, but as something that is misunderstood by society, that was considered a good thing in other societies and other times.

"Most of these philosophies would say they are against kidnapping children and forcing them into sex. But they say it's OK to have sex with kids as long as you ask them first and they want to do it."

Lanning uses the analogy of someone who has kept a collection of toy soldiers since childhood and who still likes to take them out, line them up and play with them, but doesn't tell anyone for fear they'll think it odd.

"Then I get on the Internet and discover 15,000 people, at a minimum, collecting and trading toy soldiers. It all validates my behavior, changes my concept of myself, that what I was doing was wrong or strange. You're getting active validation through communication on the Internet, simply in the discovery of the number of people who share your interest."

With arousal strengthened and inhibitions weakened, a pedophile then can turn to the computer for the final element of satisfaction—access to children. In most cases of online sex solicitation, that means kids from 12 to 17, the ones most likely to be surfing the Internet and most likely to be curious about and titillated by sexual overtures.

Approaching children used to mean hanging around schools or other public places and risking identification and capture. Computers changed that.

"A child is sitting in the false sense of security of being in his own home, and the perpetrator can be completely anonymous, he can pose as any persona he chooses," said Lt. Paul O'Connell of the Broward County Sheriff's Office. "The persona he proposes fits the needs of the child he's approaching, and he finds out those needs through conversation. They are extremely skilled and extremely patient."

O'Connell directs the six-county task force called Law Enforcement Against Child Harm, or LEACH, which monitors online solicitation of minors in South Florida. LEACH was authorized in October 1998 as one of the first 10 such entities in the nation, operating with a $300,000-a-year grant from the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Its territory runs from Fort Pierce to Miami and includes county sheriff's departments, city police forces, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, FBI, Customs and Postal Service.

In 1999-2000, LEACH's first full record keeping year, its members logged 45 felony arrests, and O'Connell estimates the total now is more than 80. The majority have been in Palm Beach, Broward and St. Lucie counties, which O'Connell calls "the core of task force activity."

Among them was Daniel Sandler, 36, a Parkland aircraft mechanic arrested last May when he traveled to Fort Pierce to meet a 15-year-old boy and instead encountered St. Lucie County sheriff's Detective Neil Spector. Sandler had brought along a 16-year-old former neighbor, with whom he allegedly had been having sex for three years. Sandler was jailed in lieu of $14 million bond on 27 sex counts stemming from his relationship with the teen and 1,417 counts of possession of child pornography based on the pictures of children found in his confiscated computer.

Most convictions, according to O'Connell, are for possession and transmission of child pornography, both felonies. Only 20-25 percent involve "travelers," people who actually set up meetings with potential victims.

Most of those arrested are white males, and their ages cover a wide range.

"We've had a male in his early 20s travel to meet what he thought was a 13-year-old girl, and a man in his early 60s travel to meet what he thought was a 14-year-old boy," O'Connell said. "Both 'juveniles' were task force people."

Prime time for Internet pedophiles is after school and early evening, when kids are likely to be surfing the Internet. But authorities say parents should be vigilant any time children are on the computer.

"Parents think they're safe because they're in their own home," said Special Agent Jim Born of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, who works with the task force. "But you wouldn't let a kid walk around in a mall by himself, and you should do the same on the Internet. The computer shouldn't be in a bedroom, it should be in a public room, so children can't just sit there and chat all day long."

The Internet is not a baby sitter, as some parents think of TV, O'Connell added. When children are online, parents should look over their shoulders and ask them to identify to whom they're talking.

"The kids we come in contact with seem to spend too much of their life on the Internet," he said. "There's an absence of communication between parents and the child. That seems to be the common denominator."

State prosecutors decided on Friday not to file online solicitation charges against Rabbi Jerrold Levy and instead handed the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office, which can prosecute on charges with heftier prison sentences.

The state attorney's office made its decision only moments before Levy, former associate rabbi of Temple Beth El in Boca Raton, was to enter a plea to the state charge.

The U.S. Attorney's office already is investigating Levy for possession of child pornography.

The state charge is punishable by up to five years in prison, while the equivalent federal charge of "using the Internet to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity" carries a maximum penalty of 15 years.

The development comes two weeks after Levy was admitted overnight to a hospital after a suicide attempt. His attorney said Friday only that Levy was "fine."

Levy was arrested April 5 by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and charged under Florida law with soliciting sex from a minor online. The arrest was made after a deputy posed as a 14-year-old boy on the Internet, reports show.

With the charges against him dropped, Levy, 58, can travel freely.

"My client is free to do whatever he wants to do," said his attorney, Edward R. Shohat.

The State Attorney's Office declined to comment on the case. As of Friday afternoon, federal prosecutors had not filed any charges against him.

The investigation is being conducted jointly with members of a multi-agency task force called Law Enforcement Against Child Harm.

Levy was accused of sending sexually explicit computer messages to a teenager and arranging a meeting at Palm Beach Community College in Lake Worth with the undercover deputy, reports show.

The offense carries a five-year statute of limitations.

Levy has since resigned from his post at Temple Beth El., one of the largest reform synagogues in the Southeast United States. He had served that congregation for eight years.

The day of the arrest, the Sheriff's Office seized Levy's computer from his Boca Raton home, as well as several computer disks, and has been examining the hard drive for evidence.

The U.S. Attorney's Office is investigating whether pornographic images found on the hard drive in Levy's computer violate federal child pornography laws.

Federal investigators are involved because the images found on Levy's computer were sent via interstate commerce, meaning they travel electronically through other states.

Rabbi Jerrold Levy has been jailed on federal charges of using the Internet to lure a minor into having sex and possessing child pornography.

In a court hearing Monday, a federal magistrate ordered Levy held without bail until his arraignment later this month.

Levy, 58, was arrested at his Boca Raton apartment Saturday night by FBI agents and charged with possession of child pornography and using the Internet to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity.

The solicitation charge stems from his initial arrest by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office on a similar state charge. The child pornography charge was added after investigators found the images on his computer hard drive.

Levy also faces new allegations of having sex with a 14-year-old Wellington boy in the backseat of his car, according to a federal affidavit.

The arrest came a day after the State Attorney's Office dropped state online solicitation charges against Levy and turned the case over to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

According to a FBI affidavit, a Sheriff's Office investigator found a password-protected diary of 30 America Online screen names on Levy's computer hard drive, which was seized after his April arrest.

Levy, who used the screen name CoachBoca, likely was corresponding with each person in the diary, investigators said.

The diary contained sexually explicit information about each person in it, the affidavit said. The first name on the list was a 14-year-old Wellington boy, who detectives learned had met Levy in an AOL chat room on Feb. 11, the FBI report said.

On May 7, investigators went to the boy's school to meet with him, the report said. The boy told them he "chatted" with a person named CoachBoca for about an hour in February, during which CoachBoca asked if he could meet him. Later that night they met and had sex, the report said.

The boy later picked Levy out of a photographic lineup as the person he had sex with, authorities say.

Levy's attorney could not be reached for comment. As of Monday, Levy had not been charged in connection with that allegation.

FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said the case is going before a federal grand jury and that an indictment is expected before Levy's arraignment. She said the arrest was needed because Levy could have left the country after the state charges were dropped.

"If he wasn't charged, he could have gone anywhere he wanted," she said.

Levy was first arrested by the Sheriff's Office on April 5 after he sent sexually explicit computer messages to an undercover deputy posing as a 14-year-old boy and then arranged to meet him.

The change of jurisdiction means Levy could face up to 15 years for the federal solicitation charge as opposed to five years under the state charges.

Levy, former associate rabbi of Temple Beth El in Boca Raton. His arraignment is scheduled for May 24 in federal court.

Federal prosecutors asked that he be kept in jail in part because of a suicide attempt two weeks ago during which Levy was admitted to a hospital overnight.

Shortly after his arrest, Levy resigned from his post at Temple Beth El, one of the largest reform synagogues in the Southeast United States. He had served that congregation for eight years.

Temple officials have acknowledged knowing about a 1984 Missouri case in which Levy was charged with misdemeanor sexual abuse for inappropriately touching an undercover police officer in a park's men's restroom.

Levy told them he pleaded no contest to the charge but was hired anyway by Temple Beth El. Levy's arrest record was expunged after he completed probation.

WEST PALM BEACH — Rabbi Jerrold Levy's computer is talking. And even though the FBI hasn't tracked down every story it's telling, prosecutors told a judge Monday they now believe he used the Internet to contact as many as 30 teenage boys.

Levy's Boca Raton synagogue, one of the largest Reform congregations in Florida, was rocked last month when the 58-year-old rabbi was charged with using his computer to try to lure a 16-year-old to a rendezvous for sex.

Monday, federal prosecutors painted a much darker picture of the former religious leader, claiming he drove to the home of a 14-year-old just a month earlier, took the teen to a secluded place off Forest Hill Boulevard and had unprotected sex. He used computer chat rooms and e-mail to set up meetings with both boys.

He chatted on the computer with as many as 30 teenage boys and kept a diary-like description of each, including notes about whether they were circumcised, their sexual experience and what stories he'd told them about himself, his age and preferences, federal prosecutors told U.S. Magistrate Ann Vitunac on Monday.

Investigators told Vitunac they believe at least one other of the 30 met Levy—a boy they're trying to track down in Boynton Beach. Prosecutors said they're betting the list of victims will grow as the investigation continues.

The prosecutors were there to argue that Levy, a rabbi at Temple Beth El in Boca Raton for nine years, should be kept in jail while he awaits trial.

His attorney, Ed Shohat, wanted something else: to enroll Levy in a psychiatric clinic for people with "this kind of problem."

As Levy's two sons, daughter, now-estranged wife and some dozen other friends and family looked on, Vitunac ordered Levy to remain in jail until Shohat comes back with a detailed treatment plan in "a lock-down facility." Shohat expects to have such a plan in a few days.

Levy, clad in street clothes, feet shackled, appeared subdued. He remained silent during the hearing.

"It must be obvious to everyone—even the casual observer—that this man is ill," said Stuart Grossman, attorney for Temple Beth El. "I'm not sure the penal system is the answer for this."

Grossman, who was in New York City Monday, learned about the hearing after it happened. He said no one he has spoken to at the temple knew of the additional allegations until Monday. "They are stunned," he said.

Despite the growing list of alleged offenses, Grossman said not one member has told Temple Beth El of similar improprieties involving the children of the synagogue.

Levy's downfall began with an alert mom who glimpsed a suspicious e-mail to her son and a vigilant dad who assumed the fake online identity of a teenage boy to catch the e-mailer, sheriff's deputies say. Working with a federally supported task force that tracks Internet crimes against children, deputies and the family built a case against Levy.

They allege Levy used the screen name CoachBoca to set up a sexual encounter with someone he thought was a 14-year-old boy. Levy was arrested April 5 when he showed up at the meeting site.

Though Levy's first arrest came on state charges, he was arrested again Sunday evening on federal charges. The Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office could still prosecute Levy later, spokesman Mike Edmondson said. The federal government charges Levy used the Internet to entice a minor into sex and downloaded child pornography on his computer. The maximum penalty for those offenses is 15 years in prison for solicitation, five years in prison for possession and $250,000 in fines.

The case accelerated when task force investigators cracked Levy's password-protected computer files, according to the complaint filed by U.S. prosecutors.

Levy, who used his wife Ruth's America Online account, kept a diary of AOL screen names of boys with whom prosecutors believe he was corresponding. The list is 30 names long and includes details such as each boy's physical description, bits of sexual history with other males and sometimes addresses and phone numbers culled from profiles the boys filled out for AOL.

The first name on the list was a 14-year-old boy from Wellington. Included in that entry, said prosecutor Lothrop Morris, was a note: "Enjoyed our time together."

That prompted investigators to seek the boy out. When they found him at school, he confirmed he had chatted online with CoachBoca on Feb. 11 in a chat room.

The boy gave CoachBoca directions to his house and met him in the driveway at 1 a.m. the following morning. The two drove to a secluded spot off Forest Hill Boulevard where they climbed in the back seat and had sex, the boy told police.

The boy later picked Levy's picture from a photo lineup.

"It is our sense that there are others, we just haven't found them," Morris said.

Not only is Levy a threat to others, prosecutors argued, he's a threat to himself. They said Levy's wife left him and he quit his job. He recently attempted suicide and left a note saying he "had no reason to live," Morris said.

Shohat countered that since his first arrest, Levy has sought counseling and as long as he has no computer, he is not a threat to others. As for the suicide attempt, Shohat says Levy spent several days at Fair Oaks Hospital in Delray Beach and is no longer suicidal.

Shohat said he has contacted a clinic at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland and has the names of two other live-in facilities that could help Levy. He'd like to see Levy in one of them while waiting for trial. One of the facilities Shohat named is merely a referral service. But officials there say they may be able to help.

"This is an emerging field, the treatment of sex offenders," Porter said. "Is there a cure? No. Just like there's not a cure for alcoholism. But treatment gives them tools to deal with it, rather than locking them up where there's no program."

Washington, D.C. -- A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida returned a five-count indictment against Jerrold Martin Levy on May 15, 2001, charging him with various child pornography related offenses.

Levy, a former Rabbi in Palm Beach, is alleged to have engaged in sexual activity with underage boys. In March, Levy was accused of sending a sexually explicit e-mail to a local child. A search warrant was issued on April 2. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office executed the search warrant at Levy's home in Boca Raton and discovered computer files containing images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Levy was arrested by the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office on April 5 for violation of state child sexual exploitation laws. On April 23, the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office referred the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office for federal prosecution. Subsequently, the U.S. Attorney's Office directed the Law Enforcement Against Child Harm (LEACH) Task Force to investigate. The LEACH Task Force is comprised of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, U.S. Customs Service, and the FBI.

As part of the federal investigation, U.S. Customs agents conducted a forensic examination of Levy's personal computer, software, and related computer equipment. It was determined that the majority of child pornography in Levy's possession had been downloaded from the Internet.

Specifically, the indictment charged Levy with two counts of interstate commerce to entice a child to engage in sexual activity; one count of receiving child pornography in interstate commerce; one count of possessing child pornography acquired through interstate commerce; and one count of possessing with intent to sell child pornography.

WEST PALM BEACH — Not guilty pleas were entered Thursday morning for a Boca Raton rabbi who was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges he sought sex with boys he met on the Internet.

The indictment charges Jerrold Levy with two counts of using the Internet to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity, two counts of possessing child pornography and one count of receiving child pornography.

The pleas were entered by U.S. Magistrate Ann Vitunac at Thursday morning's arraignment after attorney Edward Shohat decided against entering any pleas for his client. Shohat was given 28 days to file motions. Levy's next hearing was scheduled for June 11th.

If convicted on all counts, he faces 55 years in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Most of the child pornographic images allegedly found on Levy's computer were downloaded from the Internet, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. It's unclear how many images were recovered from the computer's hard drive because each count says "one or more images" were found.

Levy was initially arrested April 5 by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office after authorities said he sent sexually explicit computer messages to a deputy posing as a 14-year-old boy and then arranged to meet him, reports show.

As an alternative to jail, Rabbi Jerrold Levy has asked a federal judge to allow him to undergo psychiatric and psychological treatment in an out-of-state, secure prison while he awaits trial on charges of using the Internet to entice a child to have sex.

Levy, former associate rabbi of Temple Beth El in Boca Raton, has been in jail since his arrest last month on federal charges. "Levy is in need of intensive psychological evaluation and treatment," his attorney, Edward Shohat, said in his motion.

Shohat also said that the treatment was needed to determine whether Levy is suffering from a psychiatric disorder that "conceivably might form the basis for a defense of insanity at the time of the alleged offense." Shohat said Levy has wanted the treatment since his initial arrest by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office on April 5.

The arrest came after Levy allegedly exchanged sexually explicit messages with a deputy posing as a teenager. He was arrested after arranging a meeting with the undercover deputy, reports show.

The State Attorney's Office dropped the charges, allowing the U.S. Attorney's Office to prosecute under stiffer federal charges. Levy, 58, now is charged with two counts of enticing a minor over the Internet for sex, two counts of possessing child pornography and one count of receiving child pornography.

During Levy's bail hearing, federal prosecutors said they had new evidence that Levy allegedly had unprotected sex with a Wellington boy he met in an America Online chat room in February. They also introduced a diary found on his computer with the screen names and sexual profiles of 30 people.

A U.S. magistrate denied Levy's request to be released on bail, saying he posed a threat to the community.

Shohat said Levy has sought help since his initial arrest when he began seeing a Miami psychologist. After his April 28 suicide attempt in a Boca Raton apartment, Levy was admitted to Fair Oaks Pavilion at Delray Medical Center for evaluation. Dr. Irl Extein recommended Levy seek treatment to determine if he has "sexual identity and/or impulse control disorders reflecting that he has 'difficulty controlling sexual impulses,'" court records show.

Shohat proposed that Levy attend one of two treatment centers. The first is a two-week program at the Johns Hopkins University National Institute for the Study, Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Trauma in Baltimore, Md. After that, Levy would be released to the care of the Aleph Institute in Miami "with electronic monitoring if necessary," Shohat proposed.

The nonprofit institute has been giving spiritual guidance and societal support, particularly to Jewish inmates, for nearly 20 years.

The second option in Shohat's motion was to admit Levy to a 60-day sex offender evaluation program at Alpha Human Services, a minimum security prison in Minneapolis, Minn.

Responding to a jailed rabbi's appeal that he be allowed to await trial in a psychological program, federal prosecutors this week argued that Jerrold Levy remains a threat to the community and a flight risk.

And even if the federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals were to find that Levy poses no danger, prosecutors requested more hearings in federal court because they have new evidence about his activities.

In a footnote to court documents, prosecutors said they have developed additional evidence that Levy distributed child pornography to other people, received child pornography from a minor contacted in an Internet chat room, and pursued other minors.

Levy's attorney could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

In their response to Levy's appeal, prosecutors said there is "overwhelming" evidence against Levy to support their existing nine charges of child pornography and using the Internet to entice a juvenile.

Last week, Levy, a former associate rabbi at Temple Beth El in Boca Raton, filed an emergency motion for release from prison as he waits to hear about an appeal, which was filed July 5.

Levy is appealing an order by a district judge, who on June 26 rejected his motion to be freed for psychological treatment. A federal magistrate ruled earlier that Levy could seek treatment only in a secure institution.

Levy argued to the appeals court that he has a constitutional right to be admitted to a psychological treatment program because he requires group therapy, which would provide him with evidence to lighten any possible future prison sentence.

Other than the information allegedly found on his computer, prosecutors have no specific evidence that Levy poses a danger to the community, defense attorney Edward Shohat told the appeals court. But prosecutors contend that is simply a defense strategy that ignores the evidence they presented in court.

Prosecutors said Levy is a flight risk because of his financial problems and ties to Israel.

"He is living in disgrace in the Boca Raton community, where he must ultimately stand trial in federal court or publicly admit his crimes," Assistant U.S. Attorney Lothrop Morris wrote.

"It is reasonable to conclude that under his present very painful circumstances, faced with a possible prison term of 15 years, Levy would flee to a country where the United States could not extradite him and where he could obtain citizenship."

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office originally arrested Levy on April 5 after he allegedly sent a sexually explicit message to an undercover investigator posing as a boy. The State Attorney's Office dropped the case and turned it over to federal prosecutors.

Levy has been in federal custody since his May 12 arrest.

Prosecutors say they have evidence that Levy had unprotected sex with a 14-year-old Wellington boy he met in a chat room in February. Levy could face state charges related to those allegations.

When investigators seized Levy's computer, they found a diary that included screen names and profiles of 30 people, including information on how Levy portrayed himself to those people, according to court documents.

"His suicide letter indicated that his familial ties are under severe strain and that he attempted suicide because of his belief that he has nothing left to live for," court documents state. "This all suggests a long-term pattern of self-destructive activity that Levy persisted in pursuing despite the costs to himself, to his family, to his congregation, to his professional reputation and to his future."

FORT LAUDERDALE — A Boca Raton rabbi pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges he used his computer to download child pornography and lure teen-age boys to meetings with him for sex.

Jerrold Levy, 58, had pleaded innocent in May, but changed his plea to guilty at a hearing before U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas.

Levy, who resigned from his post as associate rabbi at Boca Raton's Temple Beth El after his arrest earlier this year, faces up to 60 years in federal prison when sentenced. A sentencing date was set for Dec. 21.

A federal grand jury indicted Levy on two counts of using an Internet account to arrange sexual meetings with two teens he met online. He also was indicted on charges of possessing child pornography on his computer and receiving a pornographic image of a youth.

Prosecutors say Levy had sex with a 14-year-old Wellington boy in the back of the rabbi's car in February. He was arrested in April when he arrived at a library to meet another boy who turned out to be an undercover sheriff's detective.

Levy's attorney, Edward Shohat, has said his client attended therapy while being held in jail without bond.

A former Boca Raton rabbi who pleaded guilty to prowling the Internet in search of teenage boys for sex could face up to 60 years in prison if federal prosecutors get their way in court next week.

``[Jerrold] Levy is more than a child molester conspiring to have sex with minors,'' wrote U.S. federal prosecutor Lothrop Morris. ``He is a skilled predator who uses his knowledge of human frailty to sexually abuse and exploit minor victims.

``His punishment should be sufficiently severe to deter other United States citizens who, like Levy, choose to sexually abuse and exploit the young and the vulnerable.''

In a 29-page motion filed Dec. 6, Morris argued for a tough sentence that would send a message to other sexual predators. He revealed new details about Levy's behavior, saying the former associate rabbi at Temple Beth El spent hours in sex chat rooms exchanging lurid e-mail messages with young men nationwide, using the Internet name ``CoachBoca.'' He is alleged to have had unprotected sex with a Wellington 14-year-old in the back of his black Toyota.

Court filings say that Levy, 59, chatted online with two 15-year-olds from Leawood, Kan., and Amelia, La., asking for nude photos and whether the boys had been circumcised.

The August arrest shocked one of the region's largest Reform Jewish congregations, but many temple members have supported Levy. Dozens of letters on his behalf will be presented at his Dec. 20 sentencing, said Ira Loewy, Levy's defense attorney.

``Jerry is not a pedophile. He's not a danger to anyone. He's accepted responsibility for his actions and wants help,'' he said.

Loewy said he will ask the court to sentence Levy to a sexual-offender treatment program in Butner, N.C.

However, prosecutors say a hefty sentence is warranted.

``Levy intentionally selected vulnerable minor victims who were emotionally immature and confused about their sexual orientation and identities,'' Morris wrote.

``I am astounded by the comments the prosecutor is making and their calling him a predator,'' said Stuart Grossman, an attorney representing the temple. ``They're looking at sending him away for the rest of his life as an example, and I don't know how they can say he is incapable of contributing to society.''

Levy pleaded guilty Aug. 21 to two counts of using the Internet to solicit sex from minors and e-mailing child pornography videos. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to drop four child pornography charges against Levy. They also agreed not to argue for the maximum penalty, but the new evidence changed that stance.

FORT LAUDERDALE — A once-popular Boca Raton rabbi now faces no more than eight years in prison after federal prosecutors on Thursday backed away from seeking the harshest possible prison sentence for sex crimes involving children.

The surprising move came in the opening minutes of Rabbi Jerrold Levy's sentencing hearing and only a couple of weeks after prosecutors filed court documents portraying him as a cunning pedophile who targeted vulnerable boys.

If U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas chose to follow prosecutors' initial request, Levy, 59, could have faced up to 60 years in prison.

But prosecutors instead asked the judge to sentence Levy within standard federal sentencing guidelines for the crime: between 61Æ2 and eight years.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Reinhart declined to discuss what prompted Thursday's reversal, but said the reasons will become clear after Levy's sentencing hearing resumes next Friday.

Ed Shohat, Levy's attorney, said he learned on Wednesday that the U.S. Attorney's Office had backed away from its initial stance.

"They didn't have a basis for [the request for a maximum sentence], and I think they knew it," Shohat said.

Levy, who was an associate rabbi of Temple Beth El in Boca Raton, pleaded guilty in August to four federal charges that include having sex with a 14-year-old Wellington boy he met online and sending child pornography over the Internet.

Levy's April 5 arrest on the first day of Passover left the temple—one of the region's largest Reform Jewish congregations—reeling. The married rabbi had been with the temple for eight years.

About 30 congregation members, along with Levy's wife and children, packed Dimitrouleas' courtroom on Thursday in a day of testimony from mental health experts who had examined Levy. Levy—visibly thinner since his arrest—nodded and smiled to several spectators as he walked in handcuffs and leg shackles into the courtroom.

Levy's attorneys argued on Thursday that the rabbi deserves a sentence of less than 61/2 years because his sexual disorder drove him to illicit behavior with teenage boys.

In addition to the Wellington boy, Levy solicited up to six boys on the Internet for sex, according to court documents. He would approach the teenagers in an Internet chat room for gay teens.

Dr. Fred Berlin, a psychiatric expert in sexual disorders, testified Levy's attraction to teenagers was a preoccupation he couldn't control. An obsessed Levy—who spent up to five hours a night on the Internet—knew what he was doing was wrong, but it was as if he had a gun to his head, said Berlin, founder of Johns Hopkins University's sexual disorder clinic, in Baltimore.

"This was a man who was struggling and losing the battle, and not someone who just didn't give a darn," Berlin said. "This was the culmination of a long history of being a sexually troubled, repressed and confused man."

The government's expert, Dr. Phillip Resnick, is an internationally known forensic psychiatrist who has provided expert testimony or consultation in the cases of Jeffrey Dahmer, Timothy McVeigh and Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who drowned her two sons. Resnick testified that Levy could control his sexual appetites. Levy never victimized any congregation members because the risk was too high, he said.

But with the Internet, Levy had the opportunity to approach teenage boys in a setting where the chance of getting caught was much lower, Resnick said.

Temple Beth El congregation members who attended Thursday's hearing said Levy is clearly a man who needs mental help.

"It's just a shame that we have to turn our backs on understanding," said Shirley Applebaum, a congregation member. "It's a shame to make a circus out of a sickness."

Stanley Winter, a 10-year member of the temple, said he was shocked on Thursday to hear some of the lurid details of Levy's case.

The 6-1/2-year sentencing of Rabbi Jerrold Levy by U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas followed a 3-1/2 hour hearing that started around 10:15 a.m.

Levy, 59, has already served about seven months in jail at the Federal Detention Center in Miami. He will be given credit for that time served and it is expected he will serve at least another 60 months, or about, five years, in prison to complete the sentence. It was not immediately known where Levy will serve his sentence.

Defense attorney Ed Shoat said he would not appeal the sentence.

If Dimitrouleas had chose to follow prosecutors' initial request, Levy could have faced up to 60 years in prison.

But prosecutors later asked the judge to sentence Levy within standard federal sentencing guidelines for the crime—6-1/2 to 8 years.

Levy, who was an associate rabbi of Temple Beth El in Boca Raton, pleaded guilty in August to four federal charges that include having sex with a 14-year-old Wellington boy he met online and sending child pornography over the Internet.

He was initially arrested on state charges after the father of a 16-year-old boy discovered an e-mail soliciting his son for sex. The father exchanged e-mails with "CoachBoca" and then went to sheriff's investigators, who set up a sting operation.

Levy's April 5th arrest on the first day of Passover left the temple—one of the region's largest Reform Jewish congregations—reeling. The married rabbi had been with the temple for eight years.

Levy's attorneys had argued the rabbi deserved a sentence of less than 6-1/2 years because a sexual disorder drove him to illicit behavior with teenage boys.

In addition to the Wellington boy, Levy solicited up to six boys on the Internet for sex, according to court documents. He would approach the teens in an Internet chat room for gay teens.

Dr. Fred Berlin, a psychiatric expert in sexual disorders, testified Levy's attraction to teenagers was a preoccupation he couldn't control. An obsessed Levy knew what he was doing was wrong, but it was as if he had a gun to his head, said Berlin, founder of Johns Hopkins University's sexual disorder clinic, in Baltimore.

"This was a man who was struggling and losing the battle, and not someone who just didn't give a darn," Berlin said. "This was the culmination of a long history of being a sexually troubled, repressed and confused man."

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Survivors ARE Heroes!

The Awareness Center believes ALL survivors of sex crimes should be given yellow ribbons to wear proudly.

Survivors of sexual violence (as adults and/or as a child) are just as deserving of a yellow ribbon as the men and women of our armed forces, who have been held captive as hostages or prisoners of war.

Survivors of sexual violence have been forced to learn how to survive, being held captive not by foreigners, but mostly by their own family members, teachers, camp counselors, coaches babysitters, rabbis, cantors or other trusted authority figures.

For these reasons ALL survivors of sexual violence should be seen as heroes!